


Tiercel

by waldorph



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, First Time, M/M, Magic Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:19:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is constantly at war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiercel

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [merisunshine36](http://archiveofourown.org/users/merisunshine36), **ceruleansky** , and **jazzy_peaches** for the betas.

Arthur stares at him. It's not the incredulous stare or the how-are-you-so-stupid stare or the Merlin,-sometimes-you-are-wise-and-it-unnerves-me stare.  

It might, possibly, be the speak-quickly-or-I-will-kill-you stare.  

The thing is…

The thing is Merlin is just... _tired_. He's tired of fighting and hiding and—and he can't let Arthur be his father.  Not about magic. He can’t rebuild Camelot and save Arthur if—it seems unfair.

Arthur's face is still smudged with soot from helping the lower quarters rebuild the thatched roofs, clearing away cinders. Morgana hadn’t left anything untouched. He wonders where her compassion went.

He’s sure she had some, years ago.

Morgana is not the point. Or, rather, Morgana is the point, but not directly. Merlin won't ever be her, but if Arthur is going to fulfill his destiny—if Merlin is going to be allowed to fulfill his—they're going to need to acknowledge the magic that is growing in this country.

Arthur doesn't reach for his sword, just drops into his chair and rubs his forehead.  "Merlin—" he starts, the prelude to an annoyed chastisement—an opening for Merlin to grin, accept the inevitable cuff upside the head.  They can never speak of this again.

"I won’t lie," Merlin says flatly, and tries to look brave, and not terrified: like a sorcerer and not like the boy he was when he first came here. Arthur lifts his head incredulously.

"Not anymore," Merlin amends.

"Your timing is appalling," Arthur says, finally, like the words have been dragged out of him. Uther is awake, and growing stronger by the day.  Gaius is not afraid for the King's life, and Arthur will defer all power to him in a matter of days.  The silence stretches, and Merlin wants to joke, apologize, anything to get Arthur to lift his head.  "You know, Merlin, I honestly don't know what's most horrifying in all of this: that Morgana was a witch, that she's my sister, that you’ve lied to me for years, that you’ve picked _now_ to disclose this information…or that I’m too tired to even yell at you."

"Save your energy for the important things," Merlin advises, and then, because Arthur's given him an inch and he's never been able to not be greedy for anything Arthur will give him. "I don’t think it was the magic that made Morgana evil."

"Yes, well.  Morgana and my father always had their conflicts, and fear…does things," Arthur replies, tilting his head back to look at Merlin, almost curiously, like he's not sure where this is going but is willing to see it through to the end.

"You don’t think Morgana could help it, the being magic."

" _Merlin_ ," Arthur groans, and Merlin subsides, smoothing his hands over Arthur’s shoulders, forcing the cape to sit just right.  

"No," Arthur finally says.  "I think...I think if my father didn’t hate magic so much none of this would have happened."

"Yeah," Merlin agrees, and then Arthur says,

"He’ll start over again, with the purge."  He hesitates, a hand on his door, looking down at the floor.  "Don’t be here when I come back."  

It’s a sucker-punch, feeling like that first time Arthur had come after him, a bully chasing an unarmed boy through the market,  but there’s no laughter and he wants to explain, tell Arthur it’s his destiny and that  Arthur is actually complete _shit_ at keeping himself alive and safe, but Arthur crosses back to him, wraps his hands around Merlin’s biceps and shakes him lightly.

"I will send for you," Arthur promises, low and fierce, and Merlin looks into his blue eyes and says,

"You will not need to."

He goes, because he doesn’t have a choice, and he does what Arthur needs. He’s no sooner out of the city when the gates shut.

A week later he's waiting, leaning against a tree on the side of the road when Arthur is sent out to take over Escetia and erase Cenred from the land.  The knights ride out and Gwaine smirks at Merlin, Lancelot nods with his warm smile, and Arthur just raises his eyebrows and reaches down, swinging Merlin up behind him.

* * *

Outside of Camelot, Uther Pendragon is not a popular man.  

(Inside Camelot his popularity is a matter of considerable debate, given the rising star of his son and the rather horrific stumbles in Uther’s life, but that is not the point.)

Outside of Camelot, there are stories about him, and Merlin would be lying if he said he didn’t sit right down and forgo sleep for yet another story.  They range, of course.  Some say that he took his wife, Ygraine, from her first husband by enchanting his face to resemble her beloved’s.  Her husband was killed that very night, and she, a spoil of war, was made Queen of Camelot and gave birth to Uther Pendragon’s heir.  

Some say he is the third son of an unlanded knight who killed his brothers, rose through another king’s ranks and put the crown on his own head, the way his bastard daughter did.

Some draw those parallels a little more closely: Uther was the bastard son of the king who came before him, and wrested control from the rightful heir.

In those places where they have not forgotten what it was to have the Old Magic and to be Celts first, and not a conquered people of the Romans, they say that Uther Pendragon owes the land a blood debt.  That to be king he must give the world his son and that someday Emrys will come and take what is owed to the Old Magic.  

Months pass and Merlin sits in the backs of alehouses and inns and listens, learns, and watches the power of Uther Pendragon’s name wanes even as that of his son grows.

* * *

Arthur’s hands are hot against his face, and Merlin snaps the laces on his trousers.  Outside Camelot is still in ruins, and they are not in Arthur’s room because Morgana had it destroyed.

It has been a long day, and tomorrow morning will come too soon and Arthur’s leg needs to finish healing, but all Merlin wants is this.  He wants the hot, hard press of Arthur above him and the soft give of the bed below them, Arthur’s teeth grazing along Merlin's neck.  Merlin arches up, presses close after kicking off his trousers and his breath hitches when Arthur’s fingers slide into him, hot and slick with the oil Merlin had intended to rub into his back.  

It’s different—everything is different.  Merlin wraps his legs around Arthur’s hips and takes everything Arthur will give, greedy for it.  He captures Arthur's mouth and fists a hand in his hair as Arthur slides in, stretches him open and grips the backs of Merlin’s knees.  Merlin’s thighs and and back ache with the strain as Arthur fucks him over steadily, and Merlin bites at his lips, swallowing Arthur’s hungry noises.

He digs his heels into the small of Arthur’s back, pushes down and meets every thrust, thinking only, _Mine._

"Are we talking about this?" Merlin asks, once he's got his breath back.  The silence stretches, and Merlin hazards a look over.  Arthur has his face twisted up like he thinks Merlin is even more stupid than previously imagined, and that Merlin's idiocy is truly Arthur's cross to bear.

"Right," Merlin agrees, and turns his face into the pillow to hide his smile.  The next morning he wakes Arthur up by sucking him off, and almost immediately regrets it as it's clear this is the sort of thing Arthur will now expect.  The days are spent rebuilding, and the nights are spent wrapped in each other.

They don’t sleep apart until Uther wakes up, and Merlin has Arthur memorized in those three months: there is no part of Arthur he doesn't know.

* * *

"He is…a good man," Percival says, leaning against the wall and gazing down the sloped ground to a practice field.  It's a rare moment of peace.  They're in Cenred's palace—tomorrow Arthur will install Sir Kay as the new Lord of  and its battlements will continue to fly Camelot's flag.  When you have a reputation for being the Six Knights Who Defeated the Army of the Hellsent Undead, it is surprisingly easy to clean up the kingdom that said undead army was sent from.

Right now, though, they're watching Gwaine throw himself at Arthur, hair loose of the tie he had used to pull it back, howling like something out of a nightmare.  Leon is eating an apple and heckling, elbowing Lancelot every so often when Arthur gets a particularly good jab in.  Elyan, to even things out, is shouting encouragement to Gwaine.  

Gwaine is shouting about the tyrannical abuse of power he's being forced to endure. Arthur is trying to shut him up by making him eat the ground, his eyes impossibly blue and his smile bright.  He looks...happy.  Merlin wonders if it will stay—if it can stay.  

"Yeah," Merlin agrees after Arthur has shoved Gwaine's face into the ground and stepped on him to drive home that _he_ won.  "A good man."

Percival is a woodcutter's fifth son, and saved Lancelot from drowning by hauling him (in all of his armor) out of a lake.  How Lancelot wound up _in_ the lake has yet to be disclosed, but Merlin can appreciate how strong you'd have to be to do that if you didn't have sheer bloody panic and magic to help you.  Percival is a decent sort, and it's easy to see how he and Lancelot fell in together.  

Arthur turns abruptly and looks up and to the left. Merlin and Percival follow his gaze to an archer, poised to take the shot.  Merlin doesn't think, just acts, words gone before he remembers that there’s someone here.  

" _Forbaerne._ "

The bow alights, the archer startles and runs, and Percival looks at him mildly.

"My mother was the village witch," he says, and then grins.  It makes him look so much younger.  "She could not burn things with a thought, though."

"It's a gift," Merlin replies, and Percival laughs and claps him on the arm.  It hurts almost as badly as the bolts of energy Nimueh had tried to kill him with.

"I bet you three coins Gwaine takes him in the next round," Percival says.  

Merlin takes the bet, and stays long enough to watch Arthur win.

"You do not need to leave," Percival says.

Merlin looks at him, then down at Arthur, who is looking back at him, smile fading.  It would be an easy thing, to stay.  To be Arthur's manservant and no more, to wait for the day everything would change.  It would be easy to take up with him again and impossible to leave once he had.  He has strange dreams, now—things he could do; things they will do.  His dreams are of fire and blood and to be ready he needs more than what Gaius can teach him and more than his one book contains.  It will be easy to return to wherever Arthur is.  

Arthur's smile is gone now, and he's just watching Merlin to see what he'll do.  Arthur sent him away once, and then only to save him, and never meant for Merlin to do anything but go out of Uther's reach.  

This is their first victory, and Merlin—has to go.  

"Yes," Merlin says. "I do."

* * *

Uther is catatonic.  Gaius explains his theories about Morgana's betrayal and Uther's shock and the devastation of realizing that one is not, in fact, God; that one cannot hide secrets forever, and that those you love best can hate you with everything in them; that a king, no matter how great, is not removed from these truths—can be just as affected as a baker or stable boy.  He tells Arthur he cannot speculate on Uther’s recovery.

Merlin hadn't asked Gaius if there was anything _he_ could do.  Uther is not Merlin's king, and Kilgharrah had always told Merlin to let Uther die.

Arthur stands in his father's doorway, watching him sleep (all Uther does, of late, is sleep).  Uther seems such an old man, frail with his wrists rubbed raw and his face seemingly permanently tear-stained.  Merlin wonders if Uther would have wept so over Arthur, and then remembers the King struggling to carry his son across a courtyard, falling to his knees and crying openly.  

It is such a strange thing, reconciling the King who burned children and destroyed families with the man who is Arthur's father.  

Merlin doesn't spend much time on it—there's nothing to gain from it. His focus is Arthur, who rubs his hand over his face, tired.  He's always tired, these days.  He spends hours in the city in his red tunic helping people to rebuild their lives, head bare of any circlet.

"She always wore the crown," Gwen tells Merlin, softly, as she checks a bandaged wound.  She has elected to work with Gaius, and is now a better apprentice than Merlin had ever been.  "In public.  She needed it, I suppose.  To convince people.  Remind them.  Reassure herself."

She sounds sad, but angry, too.  

Arthur does not need to remind people—doesn't require the tangible, physical representation of power.  The gold of his hair is enough of a crown, and these are his people.  They cry for him and press their rough, filthy hands to his and kiss his knuckles.  The steps to the palace are filled with flowers and burning candles: a vigil of gratitude.  A welcome to the prince who was lost, but who has never abandoned them.

For all Camelot's grandeur and for all her destinies, Merlin cannot help thinking that in the end, it will always rest on Arthur's shoulders.  Camelot will rise with him—Albion will rise with him.  

It seems unfair.

To both of them.

"He'll wake up," Merlin says as Uther murmurs in his sleep and tosses his head.

"Mm," Arthur replies noncommittally.  "Come on, the south wall isn't going to rebuild itself."

* * *

Arthur Pendragon's legend grows daily.  Sometimes he is the son of the Fisher King, sometimes he is the son of the King of the Faeries, a changeling; a savior.  

A heir of Caesar's line.

The son of a pagan god.

The theme is the same: he is theirs, he is of and for the people.  

Lands that shouldn't know of him do, and Merlin listens to the gossip, nursing his pint as people speak of the Prince who brings peace.  

The Once and Future King.

_Arthur._

* * *

"You are being careful, aren't you?" Gaius asks quietly, when Merlin scries him to ask if he’d ever seen a chimera and how, exactly, it was meant to be defeated.  "You will be?"

"I'm fine," Merlin says, grinning.  He is.  He's fine.

Gaius…doesn't look convinced.  He sighs.  "My boy, the King knows, or…suspects.  You are to be arrested on sight."

"I'm not in Camelot's borders, anymore," Merlin replies, and Gaius smiles faintly, worry clear even through the glass of the mirror.

"Keep safe," Gaius says.  "Keep Arthur safe."

* * *

Magic is returning, slowly, moving in on Camelot's ever-expanding borders.  Druids are moving freely, confidently, through the lands.  Village witches and wizards resurfacing, sorcerers and sorceresses stepping out of the shadows.  Merlin meets them, sometimes by accident, sometimes because they seek him out.  

Merlin goes to Ealdor to see his mother, who coddles him for three days before she decides she's had enough of him.

Hands fisted on her hips, Hunith raises her eyebrows at him.  "And what are you doing?" she asks, the way she'd asked it when he'd let the pigs get out of the pen or lost half the wash down the river.  

"He sent me away, and I have to be—" Merlin starts, because he's _told_ her all of this, at least a dozen times over.

"Merlin.  He sent you out of the _city_."

Merlin doesn't know how to explain to her that there is so much he doesn't know: that he has to be better than all of them, because magic is coming back with a vengeance, and there is only Merlin to defend Arthur.  

"I'm all that there is," he says, finally, as the dragon in the fire glares at him, unimpressed.  

"And yet here you are, hiding in your mother's skirts," she replies.  He jerks his head up in surprise. She's _angry_ with him.  

"You hid," he points out.  "You came here and you hid, and you hid my father and you all ran—"

"And see where it got us!  This is not the life I dreamed of, for me or for you, but this is the life we have.  You say you're meant to protect him, but he wages war and you…what are you doing, Merlin?"

He leaves Ealdor, and finds Arthur in the space of a thought.  Arthur looks up at him and then sheathes the knife he’d been pulling.  They're in a forest, but Merlin doesn't know where—just followed the pull of Arthur's heartbeat to where he was.  He has new bruises, and Merlin reaches out and wipes them away.  Arthur doesn't flinch under the touch, watches Merlin quietly, waiting.

"It's only me," Merlin says, finally, and he should lift his hand from Arthur's arm, stop smoothing his thumb in small circles over the swell of muscle.

"Arthur!” Gwaine shouts from outside. "Come on, Percival says he can best you with a hand behind his back.  You're not going to take that, are you?  I have substantial coin riding on this," The moment is shattered, and Arthur pulls back and puts his shirt on.

"I know," he says, and Merlin hears it for the dismissal it is.   

* * *

Arthur sends all of his knights to go get Gwen.  Merlin thinks it’s partially out of deference to Gwen, and partially because Arthur doesn’t want them to stand by him while he faces the wreckage.  Merlin, through years of sheer stubbornness, has worn Arthur down. Arthur rarely tries to send him away. They’re both exhausted, and Merlin can see Arthur favoring his leg, and Merlin keeps on blinking, trying to make his eyes focus.  

After they are gone from sight, Merlin watches the the people who are crowded into the square, staring at Arthur openly and hungrily.  Arthur  looks at Merlin, who looks significantly over his shoulder.  Arthur squares his shoulders and turns, bloody and stiff and listing a little to the right, and they wait.  

Just wait, giving Arthur the span of moments to collect himself, and for a second Merlin thinks that Arthur’s speeches are used up—that he has inspired them all one too many times in too short a time, but then Arthur licks his lips and begins to speak.  

He is measured and calm and tells them that they will rebuild.  That these past weeks will never be forgotten and that Camelot’s darkest hours and those who perished in them will be held in the hearts of those who survived.  If they, the living, strive to honor the dead by building a Camelot worthy of the memories of the dead, Camelot will surpass any kingdom known to man.

His voice rings out clearly in the courtyard, grows warm off of the stones as the sun sets and touches everything golden.  Merlin scans the crowd and is so unbearably proud of Arthur.  He knows that his smile is proprietary and fierce (inappropriate—he's only Arthur's manservant) but can’t help it.   _This_ is his Arthur.  Finally.

There was never a choice, for him.  Not really.

And these people, who stood outside his window weeping and burning candles they could scarcely afford, now weep again, this time in relief and gratitude.  

Arthur is their best hope, their golden prince born of a queen they adored, and Merlin can see that same unalterable faith that Gwen has in Arthur reflected in all of their eyes.  They have all watched Arthur grow and projected their best hopes and desperation onto him, onto his coming, and here he is, good and unbroken—their beloved prince who came out of the night with six men to defeat a massive army of the undead.   Who stands up to death time and time again and is somehow spared.  Who never forgets them in their hour of need and who has given over everything that is his to the service of them.  Merlin thinks that that is why Arthur is so adored where Uther isn’t: Arthur will rule in service of the people, and Uther believes the people live in service of him.  

* * *

"Are you the son of the Fisher King?" he asks Arthur as he ducks into the tent.  Arthur lowers the blade he has at Merlin's throat and Merlin pushes off his cloak, sitting at the edge of Arthur's cot.

Arthur is constantly at war.

Uther came back and felt the way to prove himself was to take over Albion.  He sent Arthur away to do it.  Merlin thinks it was a mistake.  Arthur was willing to step aside, would have been delighted to have his father back—to have a few more precious years until it was all his responsibility.  But Uther hadn't let Arthur be his right hand; hadn't kept him close.  He had sent him away, and Arthur had seen it as a banishment.  

Uther, upon reflection, is a bit of an idiot because now even Arthur understands that Uther fears Arthur's place in Camelot's heart.

"Not that I am aware of," Arthur replies, and Merlin smiles because that means today Arthur is indulgent and the campaign went well.   He has a sharp raised welt along his cheekbone and a bruise in the corner of his mouth, and two days' worth of a beard on his face.

Merlin does not approve of the beard.  Leon looks excellent with a beard—Gwaine and Lancelot can pull off scruff and have it add something to them.  Arthur just looks like a ruffian.   (Merlin has never seen Elyan or Percival anything but clean-shaven.)

"You lost your helmet," Merlin observes.

"I don't like my vision impeded," Arthur replies, which is as good as admitting that as soon as he got to the battlefield he threw it off.  

Merlin ignores the clench in his gut and hoists himself up and begins to lay out Arthur's armor, finding loose links and reinforcing them.  

"I know you're not using magic in my presence," Arthur says.

"Go to sleep," Merlin replies, because he had promised no more lies, and he won't break that promise.  Not when so many of them lay in shambles at their feet.  

Arthur mutters to himself, shifting and twisting until he's comfortable.  "Why am I the son of the Fisher King?" he asks as Merlin settles in to sharpen his knives, work the leather straps and mend the cape where it was torn (deliberate—Arthur was creating a tourniquet).  

So Merlin tells him the story he heard a week ago about Arthur being taken by a great magician, fostered by and of the most noble line in Albion.  That he was placed in Uther's care, and that Ygraine was a priestess who died to bring Arthur from the Otherworld.  Merlin muddles the details somewhere in the middle, but it never matters.  He thinks, perhaps, that Arthur never was allowed to hear stories.  Arthur's familiarity with the classics and histories is unparalleled, but he knows no fairytales.  Likely casualties of Uther's war on magic.

Arthur falls asleep somewhere in the middle, smiling vaguely, unperturbed that people are calling their future king a changeling.

Merlin goes to the medical tent and does what he can, smiling tightly at Lancelot, who grins at him and goes back to stitching up one of the knights.  The battlefield turns them all into physicians.  

"You could stay," Gwaine says when Merlin ducks out again, and Merlin shakes his head.  

"Not yet," he says, even though he could.  He could stay.  He shouldn't, and he'd regret it if he did, but he _could_.

"He doesn't hate you for it, clearly," Gwaine points out.    

Merlin nods.  "No.  I know he doesn't.  But there are more places than just Camelot, and I'm…I don't know enough."

"This destiny shite is for the birds," Gwaine informs him, clapping him on the back.

"Yeah," Merlin agrees.   "There's that." He takes a few steps, then spins on his heel, grinning recklessly.  "I want to show you something."

"Why Merlin, this is all so sudden," Gwaine gasps, batting his lashes and bringing a hand to his chest in false modesty.  Merlin laughs, looks around—Percival and Leon are walking through the camp, but everyone else is either sick, healing, or asleep—and shifts.

He can hear Gwaine's delighted bark of laughter as he flies away.

It turns out he was aptly named.

* * *

He and Arthur—don't.  Again.

It's not that Arthur doesn't reach for him, doesn't—it's just that Merlin doesn't stay long enough to see it through.

He can't.  If he stays once he won't leave ever again.

So Arthur will brush against him and Merlin will lean in, just for a second, and then leave.

Arthur eventually stops reaching for him.  

Merlin tells himself it's for the best.

* * *

They say that Arthur Pendragon has a sorcerer.  The most powerful of the age—perhaps of any age.  The sorcerer turns battlefields to waste and heals the Prince of any ailment, turns against the Prince's enemies with a ferocity borne of love.  

The sorcerer is not always with him, but appears in times of need.  

They say that the prince belongs to this sorcerer, who is the embodiment of the Old Magic.  They say that it is Destiny—that their destinies are entwined.  

Emrys and the Once and Future King.  

They will not diminish with time.  

* * *

Uther sits, tired, at the head of his table, rubbing his eyes.  Parchment and maps are spread over the table, and Merlin leans against the door frame, watching.  It has been three years since Morgana's brief stint as queen, six years since Merlin arrived in Camelot, and he is so much older; so much more than the boy his mother sent away.  

"You," Uther says, and stands, drawing his sword.  Merlin flicks his fingers and it resheathes itself.  He is done hiding himself away.  

"It is time to give me what you swore to Nimueh you would," Merlin says.  "Give me my King."

"He is my son," Uther snaps, and Merlin shrugs a shoulder, smiles and says,

"But he belongs to me."

Uther stills, and Merlin stands up, stands to his full height, drawing his coat around him.  It's black, and richly made with its long sleeves and hemline, swirling dramatically around him and billowing when he walks.  Over the heart is embroidered the Pendragon seal in a reddish gold.  Its hem is dirtied now, and he sits comfortably in it.  When he first found it in Arthur's tent in the early months of Arthur's exile, Lancelot had laughed and refused to let Merlin out of the tent until he put it on.  Merlin had, grumbling all the way about spoiled princes and their need to claim people, but it's been three years, and Merlin never got around to telling Arthur off for it.

"No," Uther says, flat.

"Did you think when you promised the Old Ways a life that the life we took was Ygraine’s?"

It has been three years, and Merlin has learned to speak on behalf of the Old Magic.  He sometimes remembers things that he couldn't—things that happened long before he was born, or things that haven't happened yet.  

"She died—"

"It was her time.  The life we took is Arthur’s, as we said we would. Your time is over."

Uther looks, briefly, like the small wreck of a man he had been when Arthur had rescued him from the dungeons.

"Call for your son," Merlin says, and his voice reverberates off of the walls—causes the goblet on the table to tremble.  

* * *

Bayard of Mercia died a year after Morgana seized the throne, and his sons did not take kindly to the Prince of Camelot's rising legend.  

Merlin hears of the border fight on the wind, in the home of a witch whose house runs on chicken legs.  The wind never manages to convey anything concrete—just _trouble_ and _Arthur_ and _come_.  

When Merlin turns back into himself it's onto a bloody field, with so many more bodies than—well.  It's senseless carnage.  Tristam and Ulrich's forces couldn't have hoped to win against Arthur's knights, and Arthur hadn't been interested in fighting Mercia while the alliance still held.

The smell makes him want to vomit, but he skids down the small incline, passing Leon, who is stitching up Elyan, even as Elyan screams for Gwaine.

Lancelot and Percival are quietly setting up pyres.

Merlin ignores them, walks until he finds Arthur, who looks up at him, and then through him.  He's filthy and exhausted, most of the blood on him not his own, but enough of it is, and he seems…dazed.  

Merlin leans down, reaches out and tilts Arthur's face up and kisses him, licks his lips clean until he tastes like just Arthur.  Arthur makes a helpless noise, follows Merlin's mouth when Merlin pulls away.

"I leave for five minutes—" he starts, and winces before it's even out of his mouth.

"I didn't tell you to stay away," Arthur replies, and hauls himself to his feet, pulling Gwaine's unconscious form over his shoulder.

Merlin stays for three days.  In a hot land to the east he learned to heal wounds without seeing them, and when he is stymied he scries for Gaius, who stares at him and then guides him through the caring for a concussion.  

Gwaine is exhausted, but he'll get full use of his arm back.  

"You've got to do something about it," Elyan tells Merlin on the third day, and Merlin wipes his forehead and frowns.

"What?"

"He can't go on like this, and normally it'd be Gwaine but Gwaine's asleep so it's you."

Something flares hot and jealous in him that Gwaine has usurped Merlin's role in telling Arthur he's a prat and an ass; that he needs to sit down and shut up and _go to sleep_.  

Elyan squeezes his shoulder and Merlin follows him out, goes in the direction Elyan points.  The bodies are almost all burned—the smoke isn't choking and the smell of meat isn't as pervasive.  Arthur is watching one of the pyres.  

"You need to rest," Merlin says, and Arthur looks at him and smiles, just a little, and sits.  

The sun sets, and they stay there.  Merlin would let the world come to nothing if it gave Arthur enough time to pull himself together.

Finally, Arthur stands, but when Merlin moves to follow he shakes his head.

"It's all right, Merlin," he says.

Merlin wonders when they broke so badly—he has no idea how to fix them.

No, that's not true.

He knows how to fix this.

* * *

It is vastly inappropriate, but the first thing Merlin says as soon as he sees the battle field is, "I am only going to say this once: I am absolutely not cleaning this up."

Gwaine laughs, and Lancelot’s lips twitch, a little disapproving and a little wicked—Lancelot is a fundamentally good person, but they're slowly corrupting him.  Leon chuckles, and Elyan snorts. Percival remains silent, but that’s kind of Percival’s way.

Arthur raises his eyebrows, smirking.  

“No,” Merlin insists.  The field is strewn with bodies, wearing Orkney green and Camelot red—more green than red. “ _No._ ”

Arthur surveys the field.  It is the worst damage done in this third year of campaigning—most countries are falling in, making peace, their kings pledging allegiance to Camelot, flying Camelot's flags, becoming Uther's vassals.

“Be impressive,” Gwaine suggests, and Merlin _knew_ it was a mistake to leave Arthur and Gwaine alone, because of course they’d get along once Gwaine realized that Arthur’s favorite thing is running headlong into things that will kill them.  They have so much in common.  Merlin could save himself so much trouble if he just turned them both to stone.

“I said _no_ ,” Merlin reminds him, folding his arms over his chest.

“You could like, make it pretty.  Flowers, you know?” Elyan suggests, voice going high as he tries to hold back the laughter.  

“That _would_ be pretty,” Percival agrees, and Arthur smirks at Merlin, who throws up his hands, then grabs hold of Arthur and marches him to his tent.

He doesn't leave in the night.  For the first time in three years he isn't tempted to.  

In the morning the field is run over with clover and poppies. Merlin is going to have a strong conversation with his magic.  

“Pretty,” Percival approves, and his hand slams onto Merlin’s shoulder like a dead weight.  Arthur grabs his other side to steady him, smirking.  His hand drops, though.  Doesn't linger.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Merlin informs him, and it falls flat, just a little.

“And now they know,” Leon says with satisfaction, deftly batting away the poppy Gwaine tries to stick behind his ear.

“Know,” Merlin repeats flatly, watching Arthur go down the hill to talk to Elyan.  Arthur doesn't retreat so much as he strategically decides to be somewhere else.

“That Arthur Pendragon is not his father," Leon clarifies.

“Are we waging war on the king, now?” Merlin asks, raising his eyebrows.  He hadn't been aware that Uther was on the agenda, though Arthur seems to have felled every fiefdom and kingdom he can while not a King himself.  Leon shrugs a shoulder.

“I see only one King,” he says and then hauls Gwaine away by the scruff of his shirt.

Arthur squints up at him, and Merlin recognizes that look. It's the frozen, stiff look Arthur gets when he's waiting for Merlin to leave.  

Merlin smiles back at him, falsely bright, and then walks down the hill, pulse pounding.  Arthur watches him, confused and wary.  If Merlin were anyone else, he'd be meeting the end of a blade.

"My father sent for me," Arthur says as Merlin approaches.

"Did he?"

"You're still a terrible liar," Arthur informs him, and Merlin wants to point out that actually, he wasn't lying, there, just asking a question.  But Arthur's smile doesn't reach his eyes and his eyelids are lavender, the blue of his eyes subdued.  There are new scars and Merlin doesn't know the topography of him, not anymore.  His fingers itch.

"Morgana is with the Druids to the north," Arthur says, and Merlin startles.  He didn't know that. "When I repeal the ban on magic—"

"She won't touch you," Merlin interrupts.  

He is stronger than she is, and even were they equally matched she is consumed by hate; by thoughts of vengeance.  Magic is fickle and strange, and the more brittle the wielder the more brittle it becomes.  He has seen powerful sorcerers done in by garden witches protecting their children.  Magic in the service of someone you love will always be more powerful than magic stemming from hate.

"You might not return in time," Arthur says, and it feels like a slap, though Merlin deserves it. "From wherever you go to next."

"I thought I'd stay, actually," he says, and looks down at Arthur's mail shirt in his hands.  "When we get back to the palace you're bound to forget how to dress yourself—"

"And you'd be helping with that," Arthur clarifies, and Merlin looks up, tries to gauge the moment, then says,

"That, or taking them off."

The kiss is a relief, and over too quick.  There are edges, and Arthur's fingers dig into Merlin's arm him too tightly.

"So there's this legend," Merlin says, grinning stupidly, and Arthur raises his eyebrows, cheeks flushed.  "About a sword in a stone."

"Rumor," Arthur dismisses.

"I heard it's been there for hundreds of years, placed by a powerful warlock and the person who can pull the sword from the stone—"

" _Mer_ lin," Arthur groans.

"—is the true King of all of Britain."

"I don't suppose you just happen to know where it is."

"Funny you should ask, I know _just_ the place."

Arthur laughs, his arm draped across Merlin's shoulders.  "You forget my father is still King of Camelot."

"No, that'd be pretty impossible," Merlin points out as they head towards Percival, who seems to be cooking something that smells incredible.  "What with the whole wanting to burn me alive bit and you being here, not on the throne."

"He won't touch you," Arthur says, low and immediate.  Merlin bites down on his smile, leaning into the hold.  

"So where to next?" Elyan asks, handing Merlin a plate which Arthur promptly steals.  

They all look at him, and Arthur chews thoughtfully.  "Camelot."   

* * *

This is the legend Merlin learns in the Druid camps:

Uther Pendragon wanted a child of his wife, whom he loved, but who was barren.  The King begged his Court Sorcerer, who approached the High Priestess of the Old Magic on his behalf.  The High Priestess, who knew it was the King's destiny to begat a son who would be The Once and Future King and unite Britain, came to the King on a night when the moon was high and the mists hung heavy across the lands.  The King welcomed her, and she, upon seeing the shape of the King's desire, was pleased.  

The High Priestess said to the King, Sir, I know all your heart in every detail, and if you swear unto me as a true anointed King, I shall give you your desire.  

The King swore to her on bended knee, and the High Priestess called upon those forces which run deep under the earth.  

Heed, the Priestess said, for this is my desire. Tonight you shall lie with your wife and shall get a child by her.  

The King was much relieved, but the Priestess raised her hand  and continued, When that child is born it shall be yours to raise and to nurture; to instruct in the ways of a King.  But he shall not be your son, and he shall not belong to you.  On the child's life you must pledge his destiny to that of the Old Magic.

The King was torn, but he knew that Old Magic was leaving the lands, and his crown would not long be his if he could not produce an heir.  His palm he cut and bled as he pledged his troth to her, and the High Priestess smiled and instructed him to take his wife to bed, and nine months hence a Prince was born to the King and Queen as the sun rose in the sky.  But as the sun set, the Queen drew her last breath, and the King swore a bloody vengeance on all of magic, and swore his son would never be of it.  

Three years from that time a boy was born to the last of the Dragon Lords and a physician's apprentice.  His eyes glowed golden as he laughed, and the Old Magic flowed through him and he was of it: more magic than boy.  

The King had failed, and Emrys was born, and the Prince's destiny was entwined with his, and the land would have her King.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tiercel [cover]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/182885) by [Elizabeth Perry (watersword)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/watersword/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Perry)




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